Category: disappointed

Hitting Close to Home

I can’t abide people who are rude to waiters or assistants. — Tim Gunn, via Twitter

On the off chance you aren’t familiar with Tim Gunn, his main job is to mentor contestants on the television show Project Runway. He is also Chief Creative Officer with Liz Claiborne.

He’s a very stylish man and holds high standards in both manners and dress.

I am quite a huge fan of Mr. Gunn and enjoy watching both his style and compassion as he helps over-stressed designers through the rigors of competition.

The show Project Runway is quite inspiring to me, creatively, and so it was with little hesitation that I began following Mr. Gunn on Twitter as soon as he began tweeting.

Last week was a bit of a drag at work, and Mr. Gunn’s words were timely.

Part of my job is to oversee folks who provide end user support to employees of our company.

Help desk support is, truly, a thankless job.

As I told the Boss of my Boss last week, “People don’t email us just to say hi.”

No, people email us to dump big piles of vitriol and venom on my extraordinarily hard working and talented team.

My employees always fix the problem, and they do it quickly and with grace, but my goodness how demotivating it is to all of us to be constantly hammered with rude words and shouting.

When someone pings us, outlines their problem and asks for guidance, then great.

When someone fills an email with everything they think is wrong with my program, the company and the world, it’s brutal. Once or twice is easy to ignore. Over time, it builds up, like soot in a chimney.

I have to keep an eye on my team because burn out is a real possibility hovering over us all. It’s a management problem in any support organization.

I was feeling a little low, worried about my folks, and then I saw that simple powerful quote from Mr. Gunn.

I can’t abide by it either. If only I might add “help desk personnel” to the sentiment.

Glad to know that there are others in the world that believe it’s wrong to treat support folks of any stripe with bad manners. I’m hoping there are more who believe it’s wrong than believe it’s right.

Ok, lament over. Sometimes it feels good to vent off a little steam. Important to ease the pressure a bit so I can dive back in and be polite in the face of overt rudeness.

Here we go!

*sigh*



Boss of my Boss had much the same sentiment for me.




Image found all over the internet in various forms. If this one is yours, let me know and I’ll take it down or add attribution at your request.



A Tribute

In honor of my beautiful, tolerant, and kind mother who was born on this very day, I present an entry that really, truly highlights just what a kind and tolerant woman she is.

And also the kind of crap my mom had to put up with in my formative years.

She deserves a better child than me, but I’m what she got. Hi Mom!

By the way, my dear mom has had to endure a lot this past week. Her oldest child (my brother) turned 50 and he also became a grandfather.

Hellova a birthday present to my dear Mom to suddenly become a great-grandparent.

And so Happy Birthday to my wonderful Mum! May it be filled with cake and fun!

And perhaps a Margarita or two.


_________________________________

Originally published May 11, 2011

And Then There Was The Time…


So after having a confession yesterday about my snake flinging incident, commenter Andy D mentioned that if I’d slung the snake directly onto instead of simply near my mom, that likely I’d remember the conclusion of that story a lot differently.

Which reminded me of yet another story that took place at that family vacation house near Ute Lake.

My dad was an avid hunter and we always had guns in the house. Since my dad didn’t want us to be either scared or a little too curious about the guns, he made sure we all knew how to shoot each and every one.

On the small bit of property we owned in Cuba, New Mexico, there was a tree that had been felled by lightening. It was a huge tree, and it made a really good location for target practice. Whenever we’d go camping, my dad would bring along guns and each kid (and mom too) all had to take a turn. Dad supervised while we learned to load and shoot the gun.

I was shooting my dad’s deer rifles from a young age. All this is by way of saying that I grew up fairly comfortable around guns.

So ok.

My brother had himself a BB gun when he was a teenager, and when he went off to college, that BB gun was left at the Ute Lake house. For a while, around age 12 or so, I adopted that BB gun as my own. It had seen better days, but it worked fine and there was a big box of BBs available for my “ping!” pleasure.

I liked to shoot the gun mainly for the sound of the BBs pinging off the side of something like the old metal sided chicken coop.

Not the most ambitious of kids, was I.

On the property was a telephone pole. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, that telephone pole was covered in a very thick layer of tar. When the baking heat of a New Mexico summer day would get going, that tar would soften into a gooey mess.

So in my eleven year old mind, I had the brilliant idea that if I shot BBs at the tar covered pole, they’d stick. Wouldn’t that be so cool?

I filled the BB gun full to the brim and got to work out back shooting at that pole from a fair distance. I wanted to make it sporting. Now, hitting a decently narrow pole from a good distance is tougher than you may think. Or at least it was for me. What I lacked in aim, I made up for with single minded focus.

Well, so there I was, pumping BB’s in the general direction of the telephone pole, and my mom, wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt, was working out in the back yard pulling weeds.

You can see where this is headed, right?

Sure enough, it was only a matter of time before I pulled the trigger, my aim was a bit off the mark and I…

Yes, I did.

I shot my mom.

In the arm.

She was, as the saying goes, mad as a wet hen. Quickly enough, a big red welt began rising on her right arm.

Let me just tell you this: I was no longer allowed the use of that BB gun. I was done. For good.

Flinging a snake? I got off easy. Shooting my mom? My oh my. I was in quite a bit of trouble which included a “talking to” from my dad.

That’s never good.

And so in the course of two blog posts, I’ve created quite the Mother’s Day meme.


(I did not, in fact, shoot my eye out. I shot my mom. Whoops.)



Photo is a still from the movie, “A Christmas Story.”



The More Things Change, The More They Don’t

Wow, I’m like my own little history book.

Looking over past posts and I found this entry. Originally published August 18, 2008.

Four years later and Olympics in London looked a lot like Olympics in Beijing.

Without the communism.

Damn you, NBC.


——————–

So disappointing


I’m just going to say it. The Olympics. MASSIVE disappointment.

Ok, not the games themselves. No. The coverage. NBC should be shot……and their little dog Bob Costas too.

I have twice now…just twice, sat down to watch coverage during “prime time” hours.

Once was Thursday. As soon as it came on, The Good Man said, “Is Bob Costas sick or something? He looks pale.”

No. Not sick. Just over made up, I think.

We tried to watch it but it was hard. The commercials. The interstitials. The “back story”. The over focus on one athlete to the detriment of the others. The cutting away from beach volleyball just when it was finally getting GOOD. Ugh.

We did get to see Phelps and “the touch” that launched another gold medal.

And we saw a Swiss volleyballer throw a hissy fit.

And some track and field ladies who kick butt.

But it was SO hard to watch.

Second try was last night. As soon as I turned it on The Good Man said, “Is Bob Costas sick or something? He looks pale.”

No. Still not sick. Just bad coverage.

Best line comes from Jim Baca on his blog Only in New Mexico:

“We watched the Olympics last night, or should I say the commercials on NBC which were interrupted by competition once in a while.”

I tried to watch. I really did. But ended up switching over to MythBusters instead.

I remember watching the Olympics when I was a kid. It was all about the athletes. About the competition. About this amazing every four year event showcasing the best of the best.

Now it’s Chinese government coverups, overblown corporate sponsorships, and focus on the most “media ready” athletes.

Depressing.







Photo by Heinz Kluetmeier, found on Sports Illustrated, and used here under fair use.



A Rigged Game

Last evening I had a chance to meet up with a friend and a friend of a friend to have a girl’s night out. Our respective spouses were together at the baseball game and so we fell to conventions and did a boys night/girls night thing.

The ladies decided that dinner and a movie sounded all right, so we stopped off at a fabulous San Francisco restaurant that served a very nice sangria and happy hour soft tacos. The prawn and also the pulled pork tacos were divine.

And then off to the movie theatre across the street from the restaurant where we got three tickets to see Magic Mike.

Now, the IMDB summary of “A male stripper teaches a younger performer how to party, pick up women, and make easy money” didn’t make this seem like my kind of show, but it the film was directed by Stephen Soderbergh. He does good stuff. And the film gets a 79% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

So we decided to give it a try.

Let me cut to the chase: It was awful. The acting was terrible. The script was embarrassing and even the editing was terrible. In one scene the main actress had a tattoo. Then she didn’t. In one scene a supporting character had a full bottle of Pepsi, then it was empty, then it was full again. Sheesh!

Walking out of the theatre we wondered aloud how this crap movie could get such good reviews.

Which reminded me of the kerfuffle around the movie John Carter. The Good Man is a fan of the books and went to see the movie in the theatre. He genuinely liked it.

He said then that he felt the poor reviews were unfair. John Carter only gets a measly 52% on Rotten Tomatoes.

On the plane to London with time to kill, I decided to watch John Carter. I’m not a huge sci-fi fan, but I love a well told story in any genre.

I have to say, it’s a pretty good movie. Solid story line, well defined characters. The acting was a little sketchy here and there, but what rollicking lasers blasting sci-fi film has perfect acting, eh?

So after watching John Carter, I commented to The Good Man that the producers must not have paid off the right people to get the good reviews. I said it facetiously but after this whole Magic Mike debacle, it’s become my full on conspiracy theory.

Did the Magic Mike team pay off the right people while the John Carter crew did not?

Are movie reviews really bought and sold like trinkets on eBay?

Are movie reviewers on the take?

Could the whole movie industry maybe possibly be entirely completely corrupt?

Is the truth really out there?

Hmmmmmmm……







Image by Abdulhamid AlFadhly and used royalty free from stock.xchng.



It’s All So Wonky

I’ve now been twelve days in Britain. I’ve sorted out shuttle buses, trains, the grocery store, a local pub and even the post office.

Basically, I’m living here. I have a job, I have an income and I have friends. Hell, my hotel room is about the same size as my first apartment out of college.

What I’m saying is, I got this. I’m even getting better at recognizing and correctly using British money.

I’m walking with a bit more of a swagger. I’m a local. I’m confident enough that people have been asking me for directions and “is this the bus that goes to the technology park?”

A few days ago I did a quick Yelp search and found a little place that gets good reviews. It’s called Pret a Manager and it reminds me a bit of Panera. It’s tasty sandwiches and soups and really excellent coffee.

So took a walk and easily found it. Once there, I got some mushroom soup and a tuna melt and a decaf latte. Yay! It looked delicious.

Then I went to grab some sweetener to add to my latte. I was presented with these two choices:





The white one is sugar and the yellow one is Splenda. Right?

So I grabbed three Splenda (the packets looked small) and I dumped them into my coffee and stirred.

Only the Splenda felt gritty. Like large granules.

Look a little closer.




Whoops.

Why are the packets reversed in this country? Why isn’t the twenty pence coin larger than the ten pence? Why do all the exit signs look like someone running to a rectangle and WHY don’t toilets flush right?

The nice guy working behind the till at Pret a Manger said to me, “I can’t quite place your accent. Where are you from?”

“America,” I said, “Can’t you tell?”

He laughed and said “oh yes, you’re the people who put salt in your coffee.”

Yeah.

I kinda sorta don’t really got this. But I’m going to act like I do.

Fake it until you make it. It’s going to be my new life philosophy.



Photos Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons in the far right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone4s and the Camera+ app.